Technique N°7 - Play like a child

How your inner child has a role to play to solve challenges!

At eYeka we believe that everyone is creative as soon as one opens his mind and lets ideas flow freely. To help creators from everywhere tackle brand issues, we are providing you with Creative Techniques. Browse them, play with them and add them to your daily creative process to generate your best ideas!

A problem must be shaken up to allow you to generate ideas. And who’s better than a child at turning things upside down?

Your inner child is one of your best allies when solving problem. Because of children’s ability to think beyond limits and because their minds haven’t been conditioned to make mental shortcuts yet, asking playful questions is one of the best ways to get good ideas.

We will develop this technique with the JOHNSON’S® bedtime® contest: “Design an arresting packaging add-on (secondary packaging) and a gift box idea that will get moms, or their concerned friends to notice and understand that Johnson’s bedtime routine when complemented with these products are the solution to a restful sleep.” (JOHNSON’S offers a clinically proven 3 steps bedtime routine with dedicated products that help babies fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer).

The technique works as follow:

Start by calling upon the playful child you have inside you, the one that used to create universe with robots, dolphins, and pirates living on a sun!

Ask questions and try to answer them. Questions can be like:

If you could eat or drink your problem, how would it taste?

The solution could be: a box that smells like a dessert with mint, or like a fresh air before sleeping.

If you were your problem, how would you see the world? Can you describe it?

The answer could be: I would be an excited child, running around, crying and trying to fall asleep but always awake. My world would be full of exciting colors and dark clouds.

If your problem were a human being, what would its life be like – its political views, its lifestyle, its family and friends? What would be its psyche, its problems and joys?

The answer might be: I might be begging for rest and saying to my best friends that though it was cool not to sleep, I desperately need it.

Some other questions: If your problem could reincarnate, what would it become? What is the future of your problem, and its past?

Note all the ideas you have based on those 3 answers.

You could imagine a pack with a child’s sad face on one side, and a happy sleeping child with fresh air and minty colors on the other. On the pack, there are tips to help children get to sleep and some reasons for why sleep is important for children.

By personifying the challenge and transforming it into something else, your brain will make new connections leading to great ideas.

Did you find new ideas to solve the problem? If yes, congrats! If not move on to the next technique!